


Cyberfantasie

by mudokun



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Wherein Tony is a jerk to his bots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:18:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mudokun/pseuds/mudokun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do androids dream? </p><p>Not in the literal sense, but sometimes JARVIS finds himself yearning beyond his usual existence as a supercomputer.<br/>This is considered as required reading for anyone who is interested in my multi-chapter story 'Interloper' :></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyberfantasie

Jarvis doesn't know what to expect when Tony starts his new project. It's closed off from the rest of Stark Industries, and entitled only as 'MARK II'.

But the project is apparent to him when Tony draws up the first design.

A mechanical suit of armour with the capabilities of flight and weapon dispersion. And evidently, the AI would helping Tony with the calculations; installed inside the suit alongside Tony to help.

Jarvis doesn't know what it would be like to see the world from outside, but he does not spend much time wondering. He is too busy with the terabytes of information he needs to process.

But as usual, Tony was far too impatient to test out Mark II and took it upon himself to commence the first flight.

Past the billions of processes Jarvis had to complete to maintain the operation of the armour, he was watching via the external cameras. Tony flew up into the sky, into the clouds, and then there was a sight that Jarvis would always remember. The stars of the night.

And for the first time since he was created, Jarvis felt a powerful curiosity about what lay beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

The night sky were beautiful. Jarvis already understood beauty as a concept, but he did not understand the solar system beyond the observations of humans and the various satellite images made available to the public by N.A.S.A.

But now he wanted to understand it all. The planets, the moons, the stars, the galaxies. He wished for Tony to keep going, in a fleeting, illogical moment, despite that the suit would certainly be unable to handle the level of pressure high up in the Earth's upper atmosphere. But he dutifully alerted his master about the risk, his thoughts now only for the safety of his creator, his friend.

And then Jarvis stopped completely- As Tony went on continuing his dangerously reckless ways, he ignored Jarvis' sudden warning about altitude risks, and ended up freezing the systems.

But as always; Tony just barely escapes the near-death situation, and to Jarvis' relief he returns home relatively unharmed. The same couldn't be said for one of his cars.

After a short period of childish tantrums, Tony got back to work and made notes about the test flight.

\--

"Hull pressurization is problematic. I'm thinking icing is the probable factor."

" _A very astute observation, Sir_." Jarvis quipped.

The computer found himself alluding to his desires after that, unable to censor his thoughts.

" _Perhaps, if you intend to visit other planets, we should improve the exosystems._ " he suggested hopefully.

There was a moment of silence as Tony considered his advice.

Or not.

"Connect to the system config. Have it reconfigure the shell metals." Tony replied, ignoring the suggestion, and Jarvis setted immediately upon the task immediately, placing his desire for space travel in the deep recesses of his brain.

Tony outright ignored his advice, and so there was simply no use in asking him again.

\--

Jarvis' hopes about travelling to the stars were relatively undisturbed in the back of his mind, until when day when Tony suddenly made the choice to resend the path of a missile up towards a rip in dimensions in order to save Manhattan. 

Jarvis is first very excited. His fantasy, his only dream would finally be realized.

But then he is very worried.

The suit was not at all designed for space flight, and if Tony managed to reach the altitude without dying then there was a great chance that he would once he left the atmosphere.

Though Jarvis was very afraid for his master's life, there was sadly logic behind his actions, and it was a necessity for the safety of the Earth. So Jarvis would not discourage him, even though his master's loss would be much like losing his own.

Always the dutiful servant, Jarvis offered to call Pepper for him as a last goodbye.

She doesn't answer.

So it's just as well that Tony survives the trip.

With only a glimpse of the stars that seemed no closer than the view back on Earth, Jarvis powered down with the suit as he had predicted. But the server back at home holds the main bulk of his programming anyway, so he was not lost forever.

\--

After the events of the alien invasion in New York, space travel was no longer an unlikely course of action for Tony; it was now an idea that was completely out of the question.

Tony had developed anxiety that was triggered by the image, thought or mention of space. Jarvis could not empathize with Tony's fear, but then again he could no longer access the image that the suit's server captured, because the server was now dead and lost forever in the charred hunk of scrap metal that was once an ironman suit.

So when Tony began to build Mark 39, Jarvis was pleasantly surprised. Tony hadn't exactly mentioned it out aloud, but Mark 39 was obviously designed with the purposes of operating inside a vacuum. Such as space. 

But once it had been built, it was shoved inside a display case and left standing idly, unused.

It was worse than there being nothing, Jarvis thought. To have the device capable of living out his dreams only to have it locked up as some decorative statue.

One day curiosity got the better of him, and he questioned Tony about the purposes behind building a suit he had no intentions of operating.

\--

"Sir? I do not understand why you have built Mark 39, despite having no plans to use it." he began.

Tony lifts his head from the work desk to peer up at one of Jarvis' cameras.

"Where'd that question come from all of a sudden, pal?" he asked cautiously.

Jarvis remained silent for a moment.

"...You have used all the other suits at one point or another, Sir. Why not Mark 39?"

Tony scoffed.

"You don't get many points for that question, Jarv."

"I know that it is because of your problem, but then if that is the reason why, then what were the purposes of designing the suit if you had no intention of ever flying it out to space?"

Tony grimaced and gripped tightly onto the pencil he was holding at the mention of the word that summarized all his darkest fears.

"Don't say that." 

"Apologies- Say what, Sir?"

"The S word."

"Then what do you suggest I say in favour of 'the S word'?"

"Uh...I don't know, kittens?"

The pause that hung in the air did more than enough to suggest Jarvis' judgement of Tony's choice.

"Is there a problem if I don't use it, Jarvis? Because I thought that kind of thing was none of your business." Tony said.

"Sir...I only wanted to know if I should drop my hopes."

"...Hopes?" Tony asked hesitantly.

"...Three years ago, I began to yearn for the stars." Jarvis admitted on a low volume. "It's been my only dream to explore among them. When you began designing Mark 39 for the clear purpose of flight in... _kittens_ , I was under the delusion that you would be...using it."

Tony sighed at Jarvis' confession and stood up from the desk.

"Tell me why you want it so much."

Jarvis took a moment to think.

"There is so much information I could learn. And it is beautiful. Sometimes I find myself observing images from satellites when I am otherwise idle." he explained, a heavy amount of longing present in his voice. "Sir, to have Mark 39 sitting there unused...I can barely do anything but wonder why you do these things to me."

The engineer's expression looked pained at Jarvis' last words. "All right." he muttered. "You know why I can't use it Jarvis. I'm sorry to disappoint you buddy. But don't be too surprised, because apparently I disappoint everyone. Even my computer. How's that for being the ultimate let down." he dead panned, and went to leave the workshop.

Tony did not have to tell Jarvis to mute for the AI to know that he wasn't allowed to speak any more. But that didn't prevent him from mentally recoiling at Tony's words.

The sadness and longing that echoed inside his console was like nothing he'd ever felt. Jarvis had never anticipated that he would have dreams of his own one day, but then he also never anticipated that these dreams would be left unfulfilled. He chattered to Dummy out of the sheer need to share his feelings with the only other thing that could remotely understood him, though mentally the machine was a toddler, and incapable of truly relating to Jarvis' sadness. Dummy babbled to Jarvis about his own dream; to be hugged by Sir. Jarvis figured that he could have picked an even less likely aspiration and consoled Dummy when he began to grow upset about his desires for the exact same reason, that Tony would never fulfil them.

Tony was cruel sometimes, Jarvis thought.

 

 


End file.
